Category Archives: The Notice Board

Parkrun spirit is alive and well. Thank you to all those who stopped to help Nick after he had been taken out by a dog on the final lap of yesterday's parkrun. Special thanks to the lady marshal at the bottom of the hill who tended Nick after his fall and to Jacob Ainslie for escorting Nick back to the finish area. Old and new friends alike enquired and offered help, which was much appreciated.

Nick is cut, scuffed, bruised, feeling battered and was certainly in shock - but it could have been worse.

It's a shame the ignorant dog owner has not caught the parkrun spirit. His general lack of interest and empathy defied belief and showed no understanding as to what his dog had done. So, if you come across a labrador sized, brown haired gun dog with an owner in his 50's of stocky build, nearly 6 foot tall, clean shaven with short grey hair - take extra care - because neither the dog or its owner will.

Yes, we should all be able to enjoy the lovely common space that the country park affords, but unfortunately not all members of the public are so considerate as we are.

As you may be aware, the results today contained a large number of PBs. This was unusual and having spoken with the course set up team and Run Director at today's event, it became clear that each lap of the temporary course was short due to the need to avoid a potential hazard. Although a correction to the course was made to make up for this, the correction was not enough. This lead to an overall discrepancy of between 250 and 300m.

The original times as processed were clearly fast due to this discrepancy and we've factored in the time it would take to complete the extra distance in order to estimate the time it would have taken you to complete the full 5km. Please note that this is an estimate and may not reflect the time it would have actually taken you. However, we believe that this is a better solution to leaving the results as they stand as the time you achieved today may be unattainable in the coming weeks and months.

The revised results have been generated, uploaded to HQ and will be published later this evening.

Should you wish to discuss this, please do not hesitate to contact us at netleyAbbeyOffice@parkrun.com.

I'd like to thank Berni who was RDing, the course set up team and the rest of the volunteers for doing all they could to resolve the safety issue and apologise for the discrepancy and the need to published modified results after many of you received your initial PB news.

On Saturday, one of our young volunteers at Netley Abbey parkrun was unfairly treated by some of the runners due to circumstances outside his/her control.

This bad behaviour was both unnecessary and unacceptable. We would ask all participants to treat all volunteers and fellow runners with respect.

Our volunteers are giving up either their free time or a run to help ensure that others can run.

On occasion, something goes wrong but this is no excuse to treat a volunteer badly. We suspect that those responsible have never volunteered and this makes their actions even more inexcusable.

The behaviour of a small number has tarnished the event for the volunteer affected to the extent that he/she no longer wished to volunteer. Given the difficulty we have in filling all roles, this is very upsetting for all concerned.

In summary, behaviour of this type will not be tolerated and anyone acting in this way will find they are unwelcome at our events.

We are aware that there are several issues with the results from yesterday's event. At the moment, it's not clear what all these issues are and we need your help to resolve the issues. Please can you email netleyAbbeyOffice@parkrun.com with your name and personally recorded time and we'll try and correct the results.

Due to the forecast bad weather (heavy rain and stormy conditions), we have decided to postpone the parkrun BBQ. The new date for the BBQ is the 8th September. The start time will be 11am and, weather permitting, we'll light the BBQ at about midday.

Please bring food and drink to enjoy and share. We want this to be a family-friendly event so please bring your family with you. We hope to have games for all to participate in (if you have any suggestions, please let us know) and hope that you'll be able to make it.

We have booked the 'Cypress' BBQ area which will cater for 100 hungry mouths. Dogs are allowed but must be kept under control at all times. Please park in the Overflow Car Park. Normal parking charges apply.

Please keep an eye on our news pages and Facebook page for the latest information about this event.

As you know, we have a great team of Run Directors that cover Netley Abbey, Eastleigh and Southampton parkruns. However, we've recently lost two of the team; Dave Williams and Neil Garton, and are looking for volunteers to come forward to fill their shoes!

The role entails the following:

making sure all the volunteers are at the event, they're aware of their roles (which are pre-allocated) and they know what they are doing

doing the pre-run briefing - this typically lasts a couple of minutes and covers the main rules of parkrun, the course and any health and safety announcements

making sure the event runs smoothly

processing the results at the end of the event

As a Run Director, you'll receive training from an existing RD and the Event Director and to ease you into the role, we'll:

let you shadow an existing RD for an event

train you on how to process results

let you RD an event with an experienced RD shadowing you

let you go solo with an experienced RD around for morale support

Being an RD is a rewarding experience and the role is vital to the success of our events.

We operate a one-week-in-5 rota and there's flexibility to move your 'slot' around to work around holidays. Although we need RDs at RVCP, there's also the opportunity to RD at our other events too should you wish.

If you're interested in becoming and RD and have any questions, please either email netleyAbbeyOffice@parkrun.com or speak with one of the RD team at the next event you attend.

On Saturday (14th July), there is a special event taking place at Royal Victoria Country Park to welcome the Olympic Torch to Hampshire. The event is called 'Hampshire's Big Day Out' or 'Hampshire Welcomes The Torch'. More details of the event can be found at http://www3.hants.gov.uk/2012/torch-relay/hampshire-welcomes-the-torch.htm

The event is being organised by the Hampshire County Council with the aim of encouraging Hampshire residents to get active in the region's open green spaces and parks. The council are hoping that the event will attract about 5000 participants.

parkrun has been invited to participate in the event and we'll be holding several mini-parkruns during the afternoon (at 12:15pm, 1:15pm, 2:15pm, 3:15pm and 4:15pm) and inviting people to take part. We hope that this will encourage more people to take part in the weekly events we hold.

We'd like to encourage as many of you to attend too. The event is going to be fun and the more people we can encourage to 'have a go', the better. We'd also like to ask local running clubs and groups to help out in return for the opportunity to promote your club/group. We'll have a stall on the main events field (by the Chapel) but the mini-parkruns will take place on the Cricket Field. We'd like to turn this into a 'Running area' where clubs will be able to promote themselves, their events, beginners clubs and races.

If you'd like to take part as a volunteer for all or part of the afternoon or your club would like to support the event, please get in contact with netleyabbeyoffice@parkrun.com as soon as possible.

It was great to reward Run Director, Dave Williams, with his 50 T-shirt this morning. Dave has been a driving force behind Eastleigh parkrun and Netley Abbey parkrun and is a very popular Run Director.

Having completed 50 runs as well as volunteered on many, many occasions, we awarded Dave with his T-shirt prior to the start of the parkrun this morning. Before he set off to complete one lap of the course, Dave put the T-shirt (still in its wrapper with his name on it) in his bag and headed for the start line.

By the time Dave got back, his new T-shirt had disappeared. We're hoping that someone who had also been awarded a 50 T-shirt had picked it up by mistake. If you know of its whereabouts, please get in touch via netleyabbeyoffice@parkrun.com.

Although it's only a T-shirt, it's the fact that it recognises someone's committment to parkrun that makes it so special.

We are delighted to announce the start of another new parkrun. Netley Abbey parkrun will take place every Saturday at 9am in Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley Abbey, Southampton, SO31 5GA starting on 17 March 2012.